President Trump declared Friday that he is banning CNN, MS NOW and Politico from the White House “effective immediately,” an extraordinary escalation in his ongoing feud with the news media.
The action marks the latest salvo in a campaign against the press that has already won him multimillion-dollar settlements from two networks, put ABC’s broadcast licenses under federal review and kept the Associated Press out of the Oval Office for more than a year. It also tests how far the courts will let a president go in deciding who gets to cover him.
In a statement on Truth Social, Trump attacked the reporting of the three outlets, which he described as “FAKE NEWS!”
“Media Outlets shouldn’t be able to constantly write or report FICTION and LIES when they’re covering the President of the United States of America,” Trump said.
How a ban would be enacted remains to be seen. Based on Trump’s past clashes with the press, barring the outlets from the White House is unlikely to stand up to a legal challenge. In 2018, the White House tried to ban journalist Jim Acosta, then working for CNN, but a court ordered that his press credential be restored.
It was unclear whether the ban would apply only to White House press briefings or would bar all access to the White House grounds.
Last year, the Trump White House issued a ban on the Associated Press when the news organization refused to recognize the president’s renaming of the Gulf of Mexico by executive order. A federal judge ordered that the AP’s access to the White House be restored on the grounds that the government cannot punish a journalistic outlet over the content of its speech.
A divided appeals court panel later paused that ruling for the Oval Office, Air Force One and other restricted spaces, allowing the White House to keep the AP out of them while the case proceeds.
Trump’s remarks generated an immediate outcry from press freedom groups.
“It’s difficult to imagine a more blatant violation of the 1st Amendment than Trump banning news outlets from the People’s House for criticizing the government,” Seth Stern, chief of advocacy at Freedom of the Press Foundation, said in a statement.
“It’s also hard to imagine a dumber move. The historically unpopular president has been retaliating against the press for years, but it hasn’t helped him.”
Jacqui Heinrich, Fox News White House correspondent and president of the White House Correspondents’ Assn., also decried the move.
“This is about more than the rights of journalists. It is about the right of the American people to receive a full and independent account of the activities, policies and decisions of whoever occupies the nation’s highest office,” Heinrich said in a statement.
Trump has stepped up his attacks on the press during his second term. Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr has threatened the broadcast licenses of outlets Trump dislikes. Carr has called for a review of ABC’s TV licenses, which the Walt Disney Co.-owned network is challenging in court.
Trump has extracted multimillion-dollar settlements from ABC and CBS after suing them over their reporting. The president also has a defamation suit against the BBC for $10 billion over a documentary on his reelection campaign that he claimed sent a “false message” that he encouraged Jan. 6 rioters.
After the Truth Social post circulated, Trump held a press briefing from the Oval Office to discuss drug pricing. According to the pool reporter covering the event, no journalist was removed from the press room.
Trump was asked about the Truth Social post. He responded by further attacking the three outlets. He did not cite any specific report that led to his call for a ban.
“I dislike dishonest press,” he said.
After a reporter pointed out that a judge restored Acosta’s credential after it was pulled by the White House, Trump indicated he’s willing to take his chances in the courts again.
“Depends on the judge you get, to be honest with you,” he said. “I don’t think that a court should allow fake news to be written day after day after day.”
Trump said other outlets may be subjected to the ban as well. When asked how to square his pronouncement with the 1st Amendment right to a free press, Trump continued to lambaste the news organizations he cited and reiterated his general beef with outlets that do not provide fawning coverage.
Kristen Holmes, CNN’s senior White House correspondent, continued to report from the White House grounds after the ban was announced. The network did not have a reporter in the pool covering his Oval Office remarks.
“CNN stands fully behind our White House team and their fair and accurate reporting,” the network said in a statement. “We have a right under the U.S. Constitution to do that reporting without hindrance or interference from the government. Should the ban which President Trump threatened go ahead, it would be an illegal assault on that fundamental and constitutionally-protected right.”
MS NOW declined to comment on the president’s Truth Social post. But a person familiar with the situation who was not authorized to comment publicly said MS NOW journalists were still on the White House grounds late Friday afternoon and there was no attempt to remove them.
Trump referred to the New York Times and the Washington Post as “fake news” but did not say they would be banned.
“They’re crummy papers — both doing very poorly by the way,” he said. “We’re probably not going to display those papers anymore in the White House, but we haven’t taken the step of throwing them out.”
Tim Richardson, journalism and disinformation director at PEN America, said, “Someone needs to explain to President Trump how the 1st Amendment works. … This administration’s hostility toward the press is never about the accuracy of news stories, but about its inability to withstand scrutiny of its actions.”
Times staff writers Meg James and Michael Wilner contributed to this report.
